Development Environment

I’ve submitted my application for KDragons on my dashboard at Google SoC.

Its time now to prepare my box for KDragons.
What do I need?

Use 1 dedicated distro
KDE4
Python, PyKDE, Qt, pygame, Gimp/Krita, audacity.

I start by removing multiple Operating Systems on my box. It has been running ubuntu and windows for some testing. So, missed KDE for some time now. Now gearing up for a re-union.

Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon finds its new home on my box now.
It is running KDE 3.5.8 and I just finished installing firefox3 beta4. Flash plugin has been found broken during add-on install. Need to report it. I am online at IRC using Konversation.
Next task is to get KDE 4 (after breakfast)

KDragons

My email to kde-games-devel about `KDragons` game has earned some good responses. Thanks to them, my nervousness level has come down.
I ended up adding the idea to techbase ideas page, which was probably not the right thing to do and so removed it.

Just finished this simple sketch of a probable screen for KDragons.
Sorry for the bad quality image; used a VGA Cellphone cam.
Here is the Enlarged image

I should try mailing this to KDE Games mailing list for some suggestions.

Aaron’s email said “there’s no problem with hosting PyKDE/Qt apps in kde’s svn. it’s actually a
stated goal for the KDE4 timeframe to host non-C++ apps.” has given me some relief.
Thanks Aaron.

Will keep updating my blog on my GSoC progress. Expecting to apply for KDragons using Google’s Webapp by tomorrow.
Till then I am found having fun at #gsoc, #kde-devel, #kdegames, #kde-soc, #python, #pygame and #mukt.in at irc.freenode.net

Ciao for now

GSoC student application starts today :)

So here it is, March 24, the students’ applications open today. Other important dates listed here.

Students wanting to participate in GSoC can see Official List of Mentoring organisations or Categorized list of mentoring organisations and Mentoring organisations by Language.

I was wondering if I should try my luck at GSoC this year. Bad that this occurred to me just 4 days ago, so lot of studying time is lost already.
Another hick-up is I’ve moved to a new place and BSNL has not provided my internet connection yet. I called them up so many times; no avail.

Yesterday, I had to work from an internet cafe, I couldn’t convince the admin that it is safe to connect my linux laptop to his network, so at last I had to convince him for xchat (30 minutes to convince him that xchat isn’t a virus and he can safely install that on his windows box.)

I mailed a small game idea of mine to kde-games-devel mailing list; impatiently waiting for reply.
Another interesting idea is Elements under OLPC where I am also interested in writing small python/pygame based games.
Chris Hager (probable mentor) is about to propose a detailed project list in about another 8hrs; will be interesting to watch tickets page of Elements.

Applications should be open around 19:00 UTC, thats around 00:30 March 25th in India. So waiting with fingers crossed.

Days @ Chennai

I safely reached my base from chennai on 4th Mar.

It was fun at chennai and I feel it is worth writing a blog-post about my experiences.
First, thanks to Sup3rkiddo and his parents for letting me hangout at their place. Special thanks to his mom for the iddiyapam (right spell?) stand.

After this, a kick to sup3rkiddo for not showing me Trisha’s house.

First two days were spent at 5G; thanks to sup3rkiddo for accompanying me.
Carte Blanche was in air, sup3rkiddo and I hopped away to it. We met pavi and some geeks from CollabNet; I bugged them with questions, but it was nice to meet them.
As I wrote here, I did manage to surprise thyagarajan. He had no clue that I’d be meeting him at Carte Blanche

Pavi showed me NRCFOSS office and we called it a day.

Next day was more fun filled, we (thyagu, sup3rkiddo, pavi, krish) raced to Marina beach. Call it half mukt.in team, we missed koolhead17, jeevan_ullas, shriphani and others.

Here’s an adventure story -

Thyagu, sup3rkiddo and pavi jumped into the water and bravely
fished out this sting ray. I pestered them not to behave savage, but
who listens.

Psst.. I am bluffing, this is catch of beach fishermen.

It was fun to stand waist-deep in water ( my waist deep = sup3rkiddo’s knee deep), especially with the evening waves trying to knock us down. Thyagu didn’t jump in though. As for pavi, he kept pushing us in to water; he has no effect on sup3rkiddo. He succeeded to make me slip after about 10 attempts, he fell down in 9. So you can guess his strength

Soon, there should be more pics coming in from thyagu of our beach fun.

I guess I should also thank people who tolerated my `worse than naive` tamil skills.
And thanks to all chennai people who drive safely; I observed that they have very good traffic sense, they donot cross the line at traffic-signals, they align themselves at signals, they don’t rush through. Hope people here have something to learn from them.

I’d be looking forward to visit chennai again.

Configure SVN - the simplest way

Ok I confess, I was too lazy to update posts here; just broke it.

This is a quick look at using svn at its simplest form.

Install subversion using your favourite package manager.

To create new repository
svnadmin create /path/to/repo

To disable anonymous access and set path for passwd and authz file
Edit /path/to/repo/conf/svnserv.conf

Remove prefix “#” for lines
1. password-db = passwd
2. authz-db = authz
3. anon-access = read
4. realm = My First Repository

Now change `anon-access = read` to `anon-access = none` and `realm = My First Repository` to `realm = yourprojectname`.

To add users and passwords
Edit /path/to/repo/conf/passwd

Add usernames/passwords in this file in the following format
username = password
example: krish = i_forgot_my_password

Save & Exit

To add path specific access control
Edit /path/to/repo/conf/authz

Under section [group], add new group names as follows:
ournewgroup = user1, user2, user3
Please ensure that all users added to groups exists in the conf/passwd file.

Under section [/foo/bar], add access control list to specific paths of your projects like this:
[/foldername/under/repo]
user1 = rw
user2 =
@ournewgroup = r
* =

Now to start our SVN process, run command
svnserve -d

Your SVN is now ready. For svn clients you can use TortoiseSVN on Windows or svn client comes bundled with most linux distributions.